Despite the appearance of conflict between Apple and U.S. law enforcement, the company is not only cooperating in many search requests but actually training the FBI and other police forces.

The company doesn't train police on cracking product security, but does walk them through other avenues for collecting data from devices like iPhones and Macs, as well as iCloud accounts, according to one Forbes source. Forensic specialists are alerted to iOS and macOS updates that could impact investigations.

Apple reportedly offers this training for free, and spends much of its time handling local and regional police forces that don't understand the technology or processes involved in gathering Apple-connected data. In one instance, a police department printed out 15,000 pages after receiving a file from Apple, instead of leaving it in the digital arena.

"We have a great relationship with them [Apple] from a local field perspective and also from understanding products and what they do from an engineering standpoint, which [goes back] to Quantico," according to John Bennett, the special agent in charge of the FBI's San Francisco division, which is one of the first points of contact between Silicon Valley firms and the rest of the bureau. Some of Apple's training is done at the FBI's Silicon Valley Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory.

"From our experience in San Francisco, we have meetings with Apple and they are not only a great company but they're also victims. Their stuff gets hit and their employees get in harm's way, so they call us locally on a lot of things they need help for," Bennett added.

Separately, another Forbes source commented that the FBI has turned to at least one third party in its attempt to get into the iPhone SE of Devin Kelley, who killed 26 people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. It's unknown if the FBI has awarded a contract, and/or if it has successfully hacked the device.

Comments

"Apple reportedly offers this training for free, and spends much of its time handling local and regional police forces that don't understand the technology or processes involved in gathering Apple-connected data. In one instance, a police department printed out 15,000 pages after receiving a file from Apple, instead of leaving it in the digital arena."

"Apple reportedly offers this training for free, and spends much of its time handling local and regional police forces that don't understand the technology or processes involved in gathering Apple-connected data. In one instance, a police department printed out 15,000 pages after receiving a file from Apple, instead of leaving it in the digital arena."

Yes. I hope there's a weird reason that that actually happened because if not, we're definitely in Clarence Wiggum territory.

I know quite a few successful businessmen who have their secretaries print all relevant e-mails directed at them. One of them said to me that he disliked reading things on a screen (I refrained to ask what did he use his screen for...)!

Like Steve Jobs once said about people who couldn't type, "death will eventually take care of this problem".

Police and law enforcement agencies were never perfect, but we used to respect them because we acknowledged that their job was difficult and dangerous. Now, it seems that they’re so risk-averse that they’ll shoot first, get acquitted later, and they want access to every aspect of our lives, just in case we might have committed a crime. Remember during the Bush Administration when law enforcement wanted librarians to hand over all their patrons’ check-out history, just in case they might be a terrorist trying to check out a book on how to make a bomb? The librarians fought back and destroyed their patrons’ check-out histories (bad-ass librarians FTW!).

A back door will not only allow law enforcement to snoop on our private lives without a warrant or probable cause (beyond, “hey, I’m just checking to make sure you’re not a criminal!”), but—and this is more important—a back door will allow clever and nefarious hackers to get access to our devices and do all kinds of damage.

I’m glad that Apple is taking the initiative to train law enforcement, and I hope they never back down on the back door issue.

Let's just hope that in their desire to aid criminal investigations Apple doesn't go all Google on us. I use Apple products because I believe Apple respects its customers and their right to privacy. Personally, I avoid any Google products and services as I cannot trust them one iota.